What On Earth Should I Do For Christmas Presents!

I wanted to make something nice for everyone at Christmas and it took some experimenting until I finally settled on Frankincense Lip Balm and Lotion bars, unfortunately lotion bars are almost unknown in New Zealand so I re-named them moisturizer bars to help the recipients know what it was they were getting. 

I had made the bars into both bars and also put some in a tube for easier use.  I was very happy with how both versions turned out.  I loved the idea of using the traditional Christmas scent of Frankincense as not only did it smell great but turned out to be great uni-sex scent.

There are many, many recipes for lotion bars and I tried a couple of them however the recipe I went with for Christmas is below.

Simple Lotion Bars with Shea Butter

57g Beeswax

57g Shea Butter

57g Coconut Oil

1 Tbls Jojoba Oil

1 Tbls Almond Oil

Essential Oils of Choice

1. Melt Beeswax, Shea Butter and Coconut Oil in 20-30sec intervals in the microwave.  Make sure to stir well in between bursts
2. Add Jojoba and Almond Oil
3. Cool a little then add essential oils.  Add a few drops at a time, smell, add more until you achieve the scent for you

The recipe makes five cubes, I used the brownie tin below and made single batches until I made the amount I needed.  I considered making one or two big batches but decided to stick to making them in small batches and was happy doing this way.

After making these bars I wondered how else I could do these and found some tubes, again I made these in single batches as I was a little nervous about attempting anything larger.

Basic Lip Balm (makes 5 x 15ml pots)

15g Beeswax

5g Essential Oils of choice

80g Organic Vegetable Oil of Choice (I use a Olive/Castor Oil blend from Go Native I started with their Lip Balm Base which has both the beeswax and oil)

1. Gently mix beeswax
2. Add the Organic Vegetable Oil and blend together
3. Cool, then add essential oils and blend again
4. Pour into pots and leave to cool

Again I made these in single batches.

I received lots of great feedback from these packs.

Here is some of my earlier test products before settling on the Frankincence

Chocolate, Chocolate & Orange, Lavender and Sandalwood/Cedarwood and Basil

The chocolate based ones are made with Cocoa Butter.  You can use the above lotion butter recipe and swap out the Shea Butter with the Cocoa Butter.  For the decorations on the label I again used a mix of duct, packing and masking tape.  I love how simple and pretty using a little tape can be to pretty up an otherwise boring product.

Also this is where I add that I am very, very happy I bought myself a printer as writing out all these labels gave me a hand cramp and took forever!